LDraw-based addons for free games (SuperTuxKart, YSFlight, etc.)

[Michael Horvath]

There are many LEGO-based games:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Lego_video_games
  
• https://lego.fandom.com/wiki/LEGO_Games
  

On June 13, 2019 Playground Games released "Lego Speed Champions" expansion for "Forza Horizon 4"


What you think about creating LDraw-based addons for free games?

For example, I could recommend create LDraw-based (using free MOCs, without official LEGO sets or any copyrighted MOCs) addons for next free games (or recommend other):

• SuperTuxKart - free & open-source cross-platform 3D racing game (for Linux, Windows, Mac OS, Android and other)
  
• YSFlight - freeware 3D flight simulator, but not limited to flight simulation only (for Linux, Windows and Mac OS)
  

As for SuperTuxKart 0.6 there was LEGO-like addon:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxO76p8_Gt0
  

Also there was Tente3D-like addon for SuperTuxKart:

• https://malagaoriginalenglish.blogspot.c...s-and.html
  
• https://tente3d.fandom.com/es/wiki/A%C3%...perTuxKart
  
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2ZKHHcrHWg
  

Addons for SuperTuxKart and YSFlight could be created using Blender (with some Blender addons). And LDraw parts/models could be imported to Blender, so Blender is recommended for such LDraw-based game addons creating.

There should be few categories for game addons:

• Scene - city, landscape (for example, reuse "Datsville" project);
  
• Vehicles - aircrafts, cars, vessels (controlled by gamer);
  
• Ground objects - buildings, trees, other objects (non-controlled by gamer);
  
• Characters - minifigs (gamer avatars; optional)
  

A great example would be Stefan Garcia's "BrickSpace" mod for Homeworld Remastered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUIaiPYREaQ

However, he spent a huge amount of time and effort manually optimizing these models. You can't simply build a model in LDCad and export it directly into a game. You have to do things like cut out the internal polygons and "bake" the studs into the textures. Not sure if Stefan ever created a "making of" video. That would be interesting to watch.

I also personally messed around with creating a RPG Maker game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyabknNfsR8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFnHTKgOA9A

Since the graphics are all 2D, you don't need to optimize the models much. However, the engine was not designed with large, moving, and overlapping sprites in mind, so you need to implement lots of "hacks" that slow the engine down (and are also a PITA in other ways).